We also began blending sounds to make words from early on.See how these two ‘o’s’ make an ‘oo’ sound when you put them together?” For example, if we were reading a book and the word ‘food’ came up, I might say, “Look, Prince – F-OO-D. I printed out a chart which I put up for Prince to see everyday, and I also just talked about them as we came across them in our everyday life. I looked at the Jolly Phonics guidelines for which sounds were best to introduce at what stages. Once Prince knew the basic sounds, I introduced two letter sounds like ‘sh’, ‘ch’, ‘ee’ etc.Prince would press the buttons and copy the sounds, all of his own accord, and learnt a lot in this way. We found these useful for reinforcing the shape and sound of letters, as well as associating letters with fun – Prince particularly enjoyed using the letters to build up shapes of vehicles and buildings! The other toy which really helped with learning letter sounds and names was a toy bus we borrowed from a relative. One of my favourite toys was foam alphabet letters for the bath. From early on we introduced letters and their sounds in play.Yet now, at 6 years old, Prince can easily read just about any book he cares to pick up.įor those of you who are considering home education and might be feeling the same daunting fear that I once felt, I want to encourage you: the path from then to now was easy – and I am no qualified teacher! Here are some things we have done to get to where we are today. Even though Prince could already tell you the phonic sounds of all the letters of the alphabet, and their names, reading still seemed such a distant and impossible achievement. It seemed such a huge thing, and so difficult.

I can clearly remember, when Prince was about 2 years old, watching a 5 year old daughter of a friend reading a book, and feeling suddenly very daunted at the idea of teaching my children to read.

Spellboard kiss part two